


Anonymous Confessions on the Internet Support Group

by Kimi_Ichisaigosuki



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M, internet support group, markisnotonfire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimi_Ichisaigosuki/pseuds/Kimi_Ichisaigosuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark really should think before he sends anonymous e-mails. Especially if he's sending them to his internet crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anonymous Confessions on the Internet Support Group

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PixelatedCroww](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelatedCroww/gifts).



> Just a silly little idea that popped into my head.

LONDON

“Hello! I’m Danisnotonfire, and welcome to the Internet Support Group!” Dan grinned at the camera and continued his introduction, Gmail pulled up on his monitor and a mug of spiked coffee at his elbow. He went through the usual slew of messages, most of them appearing to be matters of the heart or social awkwardness. He answered a few that seemed to be the most urgent, and of course weeded out the trolling messages. He was about ready to wrap up the episode when he noticed one more message with the title line “My crush doesn’t know I exist.” He smiled wryly and decided that he could squeeze one more message into the video before he went looking for an e-mail that would devastate his faith in humanity (or at least his fanbase) until the next time he felt like running the Internet Support Group.

“Okay, we’ve got Mark from LA, aged ‘none of your business.’ Huh, that’s a bit rude.” Dan sipped his coffee. “ ‘Hi, Dan. So, I’ve got a bit of a problem. I’ve got a major crush on someone, but it’s a bit of a revelation for me because it’s kind of making me question my sexuality.’ Uh oh.” He read further. The crush didn’t seem to know that the fan existed, and apparently was as straight as this poor man used to be. Or the crush was closeted and already had a boyfriend. The message wasn’t really clear. Either way, he should probably offer some advice. “Alright, Mark. You know, if you think that this person is already in a relationship or you think that they won’t reciprocate your interest, then possibly the best thing for you to do would be to use your judgement. Everything depends on the situation. I mean, I would never just approach someone and tell them that I liked them because I have very little self-confidence when it comes to interacting with other people, but if you think you can convince this guy to give you a chance, then I say go for it!” He grinned and turned back to searching for his end-of-video message. He felt satisfied having given advice that could still yield results without having too much in the way of potentially catastrophic fallout, and besides, Dan was confident enough to admit that he was a bit of a romantic. Hopefully things worked out for Mark From LA.

~*~*~*~

LOS ANGELES

Mark could hear the coffee dripping off his desk. That didn’t matter. Nothing except this new video mattered.

Danisnotonfire had posted another Internet Support Group.

Dan Howell had posted another Internet Support Group in which he had responded to Mark’s half-joking half-serious message about crushing on someone.

Dan _Oblivious-As-All-Hell_ Howell had posted another Internet Support Group in which he had responded to Mark’s half-joking half-serious message about crushing on Dan himself.

Coffee continued dripping onto the carpet from where the overturned mug had splashed over the desk. Chica whuffled at the spilled drink, then sneezed at the strong smell and went to see why her dad wasn’t moving. Mark finally turned to look at his dog. “…What am I going to do, Chica?” She tilted her head to the side and he buried his fingers in her ruff, anchoring himself and trying to calm down. “What if he figures out that I’m the one who sent that message? I didn’t expect him to actually read it, I expected it to get buried in all the other fanmail.” He took a deep breath. That was the key. Deep breaths. There wasn’t anything in the message to identify him as the sender or Dan as the guy he was crushing on. “…I need to go talk to someone.” He grabbed his keys, his phone, and his wallet, then headed for the door. The boys were out walking Lego, and he had a standing invitation to come to the Grump Space whenever.

Brian and Suzy were there when he reached the studio, waving from their work stations. He nodded at Brian and headed over to Suzy. “Hey, can I talk to you?” 

“Sure thing, Mark.” She kicked back in her chair as she set aside her latest taxidermy project, smiling as Arin came in with takeout. “Hi, honey. Thanks for getting the food.” She unwrapped her meal as Arin pecked her on the cheek and took a seat on the desk that Mark was leaning against. “So, what’s up Mark?”

He picked up a figurine, trying not to fidget too much. “I…may have done something stupid.” He saw the unsurprised looks he received and huffed. “Wow, guys. Thanks. So, you know how Danisnotonfire has this series called Internet Support Group where he answers questions and gives advice?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Arin sat bolt upright and Mark got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Are you talking about the most recent episode?” Yep, now would be a good time for the floor to open up and swallow Mark whole. “Are you ‘Mark from LA, aged none of your business?’ ”

“Well…”

Arin grinned and shouted across the room to Brian. “You owe me twenty bucks!”

Brian glared at him, but fished his wallet out of his bag as Suzy giggled and Mark looked between them in growing shock. “Did you guys bet on this?”

“Mark, you’re not subtle. And considering that you watch Dan’s videos almost religiously…” Suzy trailed off as her friend hid his face in his hands and let out a muffled groan of embarrassment and wanting to be anywhere else. She patted his shoulder. “Come on, I don’t think he knows you’re the person who sent the message. And he really didn’t get that he was the object of your affections.”

“He actually probably does now,” Brian interjected as he slapped a twenty into Arin’s hand. “I thought you were smarter than that, by the way, or I wouldn’t have just lost twenty bucks. Either way, the comments were absolutely full of people dissecting the message. It’s probably all over tumblr by now.” Mark groaned again. “Look. Speaking as someone older and far wiser than you, the odds are good that you can just play this off. If he approaches you, which is doubtful, just don’t admit to being his secret admirer. Besides, he’s all the way over in England. It’s not like he can just drop by and ask you.”

The younger man nodded, raking a hand through his hair. “Right. Play dumb. I can do that.” He had this. Totally had this. No problem.

What was the worst that could happen?

~*~*~*~

LONDON

“Dan?” Phil trotted up the stairs, phone in hand as his friend scrolled through Tumblr on his laptop. His fandom had an interesting new theory floating around about that one message in his latest Internet Support Group. It was worth looking into, although he seriously doubted that Markiplier, of all people, had a crush on him. “Dan, I think you should take a look at this.” The man in question glanced up as his flatmate showed him an e-mail. “Youtube is having another meetup, and they want us to go! It happens during our USA Tour Is Not On Fire, but we’ll be in the area with some time to spare. I think we should go.”

Dan frowned, reading through the e-mail. “…I don’t know, Phil. We’ll probably be tired and crabby as hell.” He scrolled through the list of people who had already RSVP’d. There’d be some big names there. Tyler Oakley, Jenna Marbles, Smosh, Game Grumps…and Markiplier. Among others. Dan felt the flush rising at the back of his neck and hoped Phil wouldn’t notice. “Do you really want to go?” He didn’t need to look up to see Phil’s enthusiastic nod. “…Alright. Go ahead and tell them that we’ll be there.”

~*~*~*~

LOS ANGELES

Matt and Ryan exchanged worried looks as Mark pounded his forehead against the dining room table. He’d been systematically destroying his brain cells for the past five minutes. “Mark.” There was no response. “Mark! Seriously, this can’t continue. If you lose the ability to make videos then I lose a good chunk of my income, and Ryan and I are almost certainly out of a home.” Their father figure finally stopped banging his head against the table, instead choosing to rest his cheek against the wood and flop his arms out in front of him. “What’s going on? Is this because Dan and Phil said they’d be at the Youtube meetup? Specifically Dan?” Matt arched an eyebrow at the look of pure horror that Mark turned on him. “Okay. Are you that freaked out that you’ll meet your crush again now that you’ve spilled your guts not-so-anonymously for all the internet to see?” And the head banging resumed. “You can just get in contact with the event organizer and cancel. Say that something came up.”

“I can’t,” Mark muttered against the table top. A few crumbs from breakfast caught his eye, but he was too lazy to sweep them away. “I told them I’d play nice with some sponsor companies. That way I’ll hopefully have some ammunition when I need to play the Fair Use card for my videos.”

Ryan sat down beside him. “Hey, you probably won’t even see Dan. He’ll be busy with everyone else, and he’s never really mentioned you in his videos. He and Phil will have their hands full promoting their tour.”

Mark nodded, not bothering to lift his head from the table. His housemates left him to recover the use of his brain as Chica snuffled at his hand.

~*~*~*~

LOS ANGELES, one week later

Mark smiled politely and disentangled himself from conversation with the Polaris representative, leaving Suzy, Arin, and Danny to handle the diplomacy. He’d put in his time, and he needed another soda. God, it wasn’t often that he missed alcohol, but it was turning out to be one of those days. He bumped shoulders with someone and turned to apologize, only to feel the words die on his tongue.

It was Danisnotonfire. Dan Howell. His internet crush.

Of fucking course it was.

Mark swallowed thickly. “Uh, hi. Sorry for bumping into you.” He smiled and set down his cup. “I’m Mark. We’ve met before at a convention, but it was pretty briefly.” Alarms were blaring inside his head to retreat. He should be trying to get away from this man before he put his foot in his mouth, not making friendly conversation.

Dan smiled. “Yeah, I remember. It’s good to meet you again.” Someone pushed past them to get to the snacks, and they stepped out of the way. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, pretty good.” There was no easy way to escape. All of the Grumps were occupied, and his housemates were nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was Dan’s flatmate. The conversation continued, becoming less stilted as Dan showed no signs of knowing that Mark had kind of confessed to crushing on him via anonymous email. He loosened up enough to laugh and ended up sitting in a secluded corner with the British Youtuber, trading absurd housemate stories and weird fan incidents.

Dan chuckled as Mark finished telling him about the fan that had used a request for a hug as an attempt to cop a feel, only to be thwarted by Jack. “He saw her hand going for my ass and he just swooped in and hugged me too, blocking her pretty effectively. Which was good, because my butt was starting to get sore from all the grabbing.”

The British Youtuber raised an eyebrow. “Does that happen often?”

“The ass grabbing? Oh, all the time. I guess I kind of got used to it until I mentioned it on Tumblr and sent the fandom into a bit of an uproar.”

Mark sipped his coke as Dan hummed in agreement. “Hey, speaking of Tumblr, have you need some of the things going around the Danisnotonfire fandom lately? A lot of people think that you sent a message to the Internet Support Group.” His companion froze. “The current theory is that you confessed your feelings for me under the assumption that the e-mail would get lost in the flood of my Support Group inbox and did not expect me to see it. That’s pretty absurd, right?”

The Korean man choked on his soda and Dan looked at him in concern. “Y-yeah. That’s insane. I would never do that.” Mark laughed nervously and Dan’s brow furrowed. “Totally not something I would ever do. Ever. Not even if I was running on two hours of sleep and binge-watching your channel. Nope. Not in a million years.”

Dan blinked, and the puzzle pieces started to fall into place as Mark laughed almost desperately. The message, the hints about the crush, the way Mark had been avoiding him since he walked in the door, his behavior now. “…Mark.” The red-haired Youtuber refused to meet his eyes, staring down into his mostly-empty plastic cup with a few dregs of soda at the bottom. “Mark, do you like me?”

Echoing silence answered him. Then Mark jumped to his feet and tried to make his escape.

Dan reacted on reflex, using his reach to grab Mark and pull him back. “Mark, wait!”

The shorter man yelped as he found himself staggering back, tripping over his own feet and into Dan’s lap. He turned red enough to match his hair and Dan cleared his throat, fighting down his own blush. “Dan, I just...” Mark massaged his wrist where the other man had grabbed him, but made no move to get up once Dan let go of him. “Yes, I like you. But you have no idea how confusing it is to suddenly like a guy. I’ve always been straight, but now I don’t know. And you’ve never made any definitive statements about your sexuality, so I don’t even know if I have a chance.”

Dan tilted his head to the side, considering Mark’s words. “Well, I have an idea of how we can resolve this, but it’s really fucking cliché and far too romantic for my jaded sensibilities to really consider it a legitimate solution to this situation.”

Mark laughed a bit hysterically. “I don’t care, at this point. I just want to figure this whole fucking mess out.” His agitated giggles were cut off when Dan leaned down a bit and kissed him.

It was unexpected, so their teeth clacked and their noses bumped, but they quickly sorted it out. The kiss became softer, deeper, and a lot more heated. Dan’s hand found its way to Mark’s waist and Mark’s hand tangled in his hair, keeping Dan from pulling away. Mark shuddered as warm fingers slipped under the hem of his T-shirt, and the sudden skin-on-skin contact brought him back to reality. They were in a crowded hall with important people of Youtube, sponsors and representatives and creators alike, all armed with smartphones and fully capable of looking their way at any moment. Mark pulled away with a squeak as reality reasserted itself and hopped off of Dan’s lap, checking their surroundings to see if anyone had noticed Markiplier and Danisnotonfire making out in a shadowy corner. Matt was smirking at them and raised his cup in a subtle congratulatory toast. Mark glared at him and scooped up his own empty cup from where it had fallen on the floor at some point.

Dan cleared his throat as Mark tugged his shirt back down. “Well. That answers that question. Now I have another one.” He smiled crookedly as Mark looked at him in alarm. “Want to get coffee some time?”

There was a moment of silence, then Mark smiled. “Sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought! Constructive criticism is always welcome.


End file.
